Chapter 8
Alexander threw the morning’s post away from himself, scattering it across the bare wooden floorboards of his library.
He slammed a hand down onto the table before him, causing it to shake.
Glaring towards the window, beyond which he could see the row of houses opposite and the top of the steeple of the Brompton Chapel behind.
That tiny tip of a steeple drew his ire, reminding him of the priests who had run the Gorbals orphanage and who had turned him into a slave, selling his labor as a chimney sweep with no thought to his health or wellbeing.
Then his attention came back to the post and the real source of his anger.
She ignores me. After refusing to help with no explanation other than my reputation, whatever that bloody means, she now ignores me.
I request an audience, a chaperoned audience at that.
And she does not even do me the courtesy of replying.
What is the point of being one of the highest-ranking noblemen in the land if I cannot even make the blasted, bloody woman talk to me!
He stood, kicking over the chair in which he had been sitting, and stalked across the room.
It was bare of furniture except for a chair and desk, and the shelves of books that he had rapidly acquired after taking the house.
The sight of the books comforted him while the feel of a cluttered room made him uncomfortable.
The house he had leased in the extreme west of London was deliberately kept with a minimum of furniture for that reason.
I am running out of time. The amendments will be read in two days’ time and Sebastian is being hampered in his alliance building by me. My voice. My accent. My previous behavior and my demeanor. Damn these English and their rules!
Pacing the room he felt the anger rising at the injustice of it all.
The urge to escape filled him and he left the library, slamming doors as he strode through the house and out of its rear doors, into the garden.
Compared to the Ravendel’s garden it was basic, a rectangle of grass with a shaded pond at one end and flower beds around the edges.
But it was ringed by trees, hiding it from the view of other houses.
Kicking off his boots and pulling off his stockings, abandoning both, he walked barefoot out across the lawn.
It brought him immediate comfort, a feeling of being connected to the earth through the feel of the grass on the soles of his feet and between his toes.
He took a breath, looking up at the blue sky, studded with clouds.
Birdsong reached him, twitters passing back and forth, trills and whistles.
As calm descended on him, the answer came.
If she will not allow me to come to her, then I must go to her without her consent. I cannot force my way into her house. But, I know that she has a habit of reading in that little hut in her garden in the evening. And such places have walls which can be climbed.
A thoroughly roguish and un-English plan. Or at least ungentlemanly. As a boy, he had scaled many walls in search of things to steal.
All I wish to steal this time is a little of her time.
She can refuse me and probably will but it is my last roll of the dice.
If she will not help me then I will leave London for Lorchester and leave the Bill in Sebastian’s hands.
It will rankle not to be part of it after I have put in so much work but there is nothing else for it.
Having reached his decision, he walked back across the lawn, regretting the return to his stockings, boots, and the trappings of civilization.
There was much to do. He would need to go to Great Russell Street and discover the geography of the Ravendel’s property, and find the best way in before nightfall robbed him of visibility.
Having discovered his way in, he would go back after nightfall in the hope of finding Violet in the garden.
The rear wall of the Ravendel garden faced a narrow, cobbled alleyway.
A row of terraced houses stood opposite, facing towards Bedford Square, which lay beyond.
The alley was, therefore, not overlooked by the houses on Great Russell Street or those facing the Square.
It was unlit and as clouds obscured the moon, as close to complete darkness as could be hoped for in such a metropolis.
Alexander had approached the alleyway from Bedford Square, walking casually until he reached the entrance to the alleyway, then slipping quietly into its shadows.
Once hidden by the darkness, he ran to the point he had marked for himself with a piece of chalk earlier in the day.
That was the point in the wall that faced the Ravendel’s house.
He recognized one of the trees that was visible on the other side of the wall, standing taller than the rest.
That tree was one of those that overhung the wooden hut that was his objective.
He slipped off his boots and stockings again, and began to climb the wall.
It wasn’t difficult, the mortar between bricks had begun to crumble in several places, allowing for easier hand and toeholds.
For someone as experienced in housebreaking as Alexander had been in his youth, it was simplicity itself to scale.
Once atop the wall, he lay flat and peered over the edge.
Reaching cautiously, he found a path down the far side of the wall, leaping the last few feet to the soft ground below.
For a moment he crouched amid the bushes, waiting to see if any sound from his scaling of the wall had reached the house or anyone in the garden.
There was no sound and so he began to make his stealthy way in the direction of the hut.
She probably calls it a lodge or a gazebo. It is a hut though. Little more than a shed.
A light reached him from between the intermeshed branches of trees and shrubs that formed dense growth at the end of the garden.
Moving branches aside he saw that the light came from the structure he sought, leaking from between cracks in the boards making it up.
He moved closer and was then stopped by a voice.
“I am armed. So, whoever you are, I would not approach any closer or I will scream and bring down all the servants in the house on you.”
It was Violet’s voice. She appeared from inside the hut, peering around a corner into the darkness beyond. Alexander stood, feeling foolish.
“There is no need for that, Lady Violet. It is Alexander Fitzgrant.”
He took a cautious step forward, holding his arms out to his sides to show he carried nothing that could be construed as a weapon. Violet shrank back, raising a hand warningly.
“Your Grace! What on earth are you doing in our garden, sneaking about. Or, not sneaking actually. You were making enough noise for an elephant!”
A burglar but not a woodsman it seems.
“I apologize, Lady Violet. I needed to speak with you very urgently and you have been ignoring my letters.”
“Does that not tell you something, Your Grace?” Violet said.
Alexander had moved to the front of the hut and stood within the light of the lamp that Violet had within. He saw her book open beside it.
“It tells me you have misjudged me. But if I was motivated by purely selfish means, I would not go so far as to scale your wall. But I am not, I am…I have a crusade you might say. I wish to help those less fortunate than myself. And you, into the bargain.”
Violet had stepped back into the hut and Alexander realized that he now blocked her exit from the structure.
He did not advance further but casually sat down on the ground to show that he was no threat.
She stepped forward nervously, looking past him, clearly gauging whether she would be able to run past him.
“Why are you sitting on the ground?” she asked.
“To show ye how bloody harmless I am, lass!” Alexander said in exasperation. “Do ye wannae know how I can help ye, or no?”
In his frustration, his Scots dialect came through broadly and he clamped his teeth shut, remembering other reactions to it.
“How?” Violet asked curiously.
“I can help you find out who your father is. I employ the best solicitor in London and have the resources to find out, no matter how long it takes,” Alexander said simply.
Those beautiful lips pursed for a moment and her head tilted. She looked hard at him, eyes boring into his.
By God but I could sit here all night and look back into those eyes. I could happily take root in this spot if she came to look at me just once a day.
Violet went back into the hut and took a seat.
“Very well,” she said. “Join me and tell me what you would have me do.”